Erie Phil welcomes brilliant guest pianist Inon Barnatan

By John ChaconaContributing writer

January 24, 2013 01:45 PM

By John ChaconaContributing writer

January 24, 2013 01:45 PM

HEAR IT

The Erie Philharmonic with pianist Inon Barnatan will present a program by Rouse, Beethoven and Wagner/Vlieger on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Warner Theatre, 811 State St. Tickets range from $20 to $50 and are available at www.eriephil.org or by calling 455-1375, Ext. 4. For more on Barnatan, visit inonbarnatan.com.

There are few places that hot-commodity concert pianists don't go to concertize these days.

Inon Barnatan, the soloist for Saturday's Erie Philharmonic concert, is as well-traveled as you would expect of one of the young pianists of the moment.

But Barnatan's cosmopolitan vocation hasn't yet become routine, not from his description of a trip to India from which he had just returned.

"The sheer assault on the senses is absolutely intoxicating," he said. "Everything you look at and hear and experience is intensified and really quite extraordinary."

Something similar happens when you listen to Barnatan's revelatory new CD, "Darknesse Visible," which was named to the New York Times list of best classical music recordings of 2012. Barnatan's dazzling reading of Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit" explains the phenomenon. In a work renowned for its difficulty, the Tel Aviv-born pianist not only nails every note (a prodigious feat in itself), but also does so with almost superhuman clarity and articulation. Every note sounds and every sound gleams. This is pianism in HD.

On Saturday, he'll play Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto on a program that will open with Christopher Rouse's antic "The Infernal Machine" and end with an arrangement from Richard Wagner's "Ring" cycle of operas by the Dutch composer Henk de Vlieger.

Barnatan, who came to America in 2006, now makes his home in a converted Harlem warehouse; it's the base for an accelerating international career. As you read this, Barnatan is flying back from Barcelona, where he concluded a tour with cellist Alisa Weilerstein.

He studied with, among others, American pianist Leon Fleisher, whose recordings of the Beethoven piano concertos with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, have achieved near-mythic status.

Speaking for pianists, Barnatan asserted, "Not having an instrument we can travel with is not a disadvantage. The same piece on different pianos is a different piece. The same thing prevails for different halls and different situations."

Even for a piece as familiar as the "Emperor?"

"A piece as great as the 'Emperor' has so much to explore," Barnatan said. "It's so much greater than what we can do to it and what we can explore in it. It's like having an endless conversation. I never get bored of it and I can never get bored of it. Great music is rarely finished. A great book you can always read more than once."

HEAR IT

The Erie Philharmonic with pianist Inon Barnatan will present a program by Rouse, Beethoven and Wagner/Vlieger on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Warner Theatre, 811 State St. Tickets range from $20 to $50 and are available at www.eriephil.org or by calling 455-1375, Ext. 4. For more on Barnatan, visit inonbarnatan.com.